Pesto Ricotta Asparagus Egg Pie

Anticipation is become an endangered emotion.

The immediateness of society has numbed us and made us believe that waiting is an unnecessary part of life. Thankfully biology has kept us in touch with the reality of anticipation. There was a time when you waited until spring for strawberries, when you ate tomatoes in summer, when winter squash came in the winter. Eating seasonal is so fashionable any discussion of the behavior is a bit banal.

Pregnancy is great reminder about the power of anticipation. Forty weeks of waiting. And for most of human experience, women waited and waited in the hope that their wombs were holding a son (hopefully some were happy with a girl.) Science has helped us with the gender thing. But, we still have to wait the long wait.

But modern life bucks this trend. Instead of prizing anticipation and enjoying the time we wait, we think of time as a commodity. Most magazines are advertising ways to help you save time. But, what are we doing that is worthwhile with that time? Here is where anticipation and waiting come in. If you save up all that time only to be busy doing more things, what’s the point? Enjoying the moment is quite another thing altogether.

The momentary has often been lost on me. But, with Belle, I am learning. Learning to appreciate the wait is a skill that I am trying to teach my Belle. When your whole life is half a Presidential term, it is hard to appreciate long stretches of time. But, in trying to help her realize why waiting is worthy, say like waiting for the cupcakes to bake, I am learning to appreciate the time we wait together. For that reason, when we had J—‘s family over for brunch, I made some easy, fast recipes. But, then I didn’t take too many food pictures, I didn’t write a post right away, I did care about keeping the moment for the future. I just lived the moment. And, now I anticipate another such morning. With the hecticness of life, another such morning won’t happen for a long time no doubt. But, we can enjoy the wait.

The Menu:
Baked French Toast
Pesto Ricotta Asparagus Egg Pie
Strawberry Ricotta Pie
Bacon Squares

Recipe:
Ricotta Egg Pie
(based on a recipe from Country Living)

Grate potatoes, toss with salt, pepper and olive oil and then pack into the bottom and on the sides of a deep dish pie pan. The potatoes will shrink so over fill it.

Bake at 375 until brown. Place in the freezer over night.

The next morning, whip 2 egg whites.

In a large bowl mix,
1/4 cup half and half
1 cup ricotta
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup grated parmesan
3 tablespoon pesto
¼ cup diced steamed asparagus.

Fold in the egg whites.

Pour into frozen crust. Top with a few spears of steamed asparagus.

Bake at 375 for 45 minutes.

This is also my entry for One Local Summer. The Half and Half was Snowville Creamery, the eggs, asparagus came from the Chagrin Falls Farmers market. The potatoes were frozen grated potatoes from last year’s CSA. The pesto from our own basil. (In fact the whole menu was fairly local. The bread from a local Jewish bakery, the bacon from Cherry Valley, the maple syrup from Snake Hill Farm, the strawberries from Woolf, the ricotta from Micellis… Really where I continue to lack is with wheat products—the filo and the puff pastry were store bought and who knows from where they hailed. And, with the baked egg dish, the parmesan was Italian and the pinenuts not local.)

Red White and Blue Bundt cake ( Cherry and Blueberry Bundt Cake)

All my synapses and intelligence has been drained in the process of making this bundt cake. I don't have the energy to write anything thoughtful or charming as an introduction. Here are the facts of the day as told now by a very exhausted narrator and one important caveat.

fact 1. Sometime early in the morning, I had a giant box of cherries that my dad had brought home from a big box store. I didn't want them (they were not local or organic). I didn't feel right wasting them.

fact 2. Sometimes my dreams of aesthetic overrides any little common sense I might possess.

fact 3. My husband was busy trying to clean and organize the bills so I was stupidly left to my own devices.

fact 4. We were going to the home of some family friends later in the day, so I thought Belle would love to help me make a cake.

fact 5. Belle's grandfather decided to take her out to the store. When she was out with her grandfather tooling about town, I decided to set up and measure everything so that when she returned all she would have to do is dump the dry ingredients into their bowl and mix dry into wet. (It all seemed very doable at that point.)



fact 6. I am pregnant and stupid so somehow I didn't forsee the large number of bowl, whisks, spoons, mixers, food processors, counters, andfingers that would need cleaning.

fact 7. By the time the bundt was finished and the dishes were cleaned, I was fairly sure I didn't want to ever think about red, white and blue bundt cake ever again.


fact 8. It probably would have been so daunting if I hadn't been 9 months pregnant.

fact 9. Belle and J-- thought it was delicious.

And then the caveat: In my recent baking experience, red seems to be somewhat fugitive. The strawberry cupcakes were much less red when baked. This too did not turn out as red as I had envisioned. It is not surprising to me as red natural dyes are the most fugitive of all the natural dyes. So you could use red food coloring, but I decided to just accept that the cake would only have a pale pink set of stripes.



Recipe
Red White and Blue Bundt cake ( Cherry and Blueberry Bundt Cake)

Start the Red Batter:
In a bowl, combine:
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp mint
1 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

In the stand mixer:
beat 2 egg whites, remove to another bowl

Beat 2 more egg whites, remove to yet another bowl

In the stand mixered, combine:
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened

Once the sugar and butter are fluffy add:
2 large eggs yolks
1/2 cup cherry puree
4 oz sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Remove this to another bowl

Then, start the white batter:
n a bowl, combine:
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp ginger
1 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

In the stand mixered, combine:
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened

Once the sugar and butter are fluffy add:
2 large eggs yolks
1/2 cup apple sauce
4 oz sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Now, add the red wet mixture to the minty flour and the white wet mixture to the ginger flour, and the fold the egg whites into each batter.

Toss 1/2 cup blueberries with 2 T of flour and 1 T sugar.

Take a deep breath and then assemble.

Put in 1/3 of the white batter, 1/2 the blueberries, 1/2 red batter, 1/3 white batter, 1/2 the blueberries, 1/2 red batter, 1/3 white batter.

Bake 1 hr at 375 cool and glaze.

To make the glaze, combine:
2 heaping T powdered sugar
1 T buttermilk (in 1 t increments) until a think shiny glaze forms.

Drizzle over cooled cake.

Vegan Salad Nicoise

I work in a land where splitting hairs is darn near a job title. In academia, people make their living with sometimes vary narrow expertise. Dissertations hinge on factors as small as that guy believed such and such war was a total failure and I believe it is sort of a failure. In saying this, I am not above it. There are plenty of meetings where I am right there in the verbal melee of splitting hairs. Don’t get me started on the history of cotton…

Food culture has its own level of splitting hairs. Anyone ever said I would only ever eat ____. Most of us have something that is seriously anathema (conventional strawberries, jackfruit only if I am in Asia). One of the really fancy splitting hairs contingent are the cultural purists—those who maintain that certain traditional recipes are only right if they follow ancient prescribed formulas. And here I am torn. Professionally I am totally pro-splitting hairs. And personally, I am con-following food rules. Heck, I eat mango with feta and make ramp kimchi.

Last night we had a vegan salad that is clearly a close friend of salade nicoise. Perhaps her hippie cousin? We dressed the whole thing with olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, mustard and chopped 'fines herbes' ( parsley, chives, chervil, thyme and tarragon); which is all very kosher in the land of Nice. We avoided lettuce as many a purist suggests (demands?). But, we also avoided anything from the sea and eggs for that matter. For protein sources we went with broiled tofu and tomato braised chickpeas. And, it was delicious.



Recipe
Vegan Salad Nicoise
First, marinate firm tofu sliced in ½ inch thick pieces:
2 T pomegranate molasses
1t agave nectar
A splash braggs liquid aminos
Olive oil
Chopped chervil
Chopped thyme
Chopped tarragon
¼ cup water
2 T red wine vinegar
2 cloves garlic minced

Then, boil small red potatoes, steam asparagus and green beans. When still warm, dress each with olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, mustard, minced garlic, and chopped 'fines herbes' ( parsley, chives, chervil, thyme and tarragon). Chill each separately.

When the veggies are chilling, broil the tofu under a high broiler for 12 minutes basting periodically.

At the same time, simmer chickpeas with red onions, 2 T tomato paste, thyme and cayenne.

Quarter some cherry tomatoes. (I didn’t dress them but just because.) Rinse some radishes.

Scour your fridge for some olives. We only had kalamata.

Arrange and then eat.

This was also my One Local Summer dish for the week.  Sadly our CSA has had some major problems with their crop but we are still shopping at the local farmers market for our food.  The tofu is from Cleveland Tofu Company, the veggies and the garlic in the dressing were bought at North Union market at Chagrin Falls with the exclusion of the tomatoes, olives and the chickpeas.  My favorite of the veggies were the radishes from Salash Farm.  (This farm has the best spinach too which we bought and used for pizza a few weeks ago.)  The herbs for the salad were from our yard.  The dinner was paired with bread from On The Rise.